Monthly Archives: August 2011

I can be the nicest person you’ll ever meet…but sometimes? I get these urges to do mean things just because I think they’d be funny.

I don’t act on them.

Well, I rarely act on them.

When I see someone bent over to pick something up, I have this urge to get a running start and give that person a really hard slap on the ass. Oh, okay…I’ve done that a time or two.

If someone is squatted down I want to reach over and give them a little push on the shoulder to knock them over.

When I see people jumping on a trampoline, I want to yank it out from under them when they’re mid-air.*

When I’m walking through the mall and I get behind a person that’s too busy texting to walk I want to step on the heel of his/her shoe.

Last Friday morning I went to the grocery store with my mom and grandma. Mom was looking at something on a shelf when I noticed a giant box full of dodge balls. I went as far as to pick one up and bounce it on the floor a couple of times…the whole time arguing with myself.

Look! She bent over! How funny would it be to throw this ball at her ass?!

No…No…It’s not okay to throw a ball at your mother’s rear end in a grocery store.

Oh come on…It won’t hurt…it’ll just be funny…

How would you feel if someone did that to you?

But… no one is going to do it to me. And it will be funny!

You’re a jerk.

BUT IT WILL BE FUNNY!

I must have looked deranged standing there holding that ball and laughing to myself. I had conjured up a mental image of the ball leaving my hands, gracefully floating through the air in slow-motion, and bouncing off of my mother’s backside. I’m laughing as I type this, actually. I’m so mean.

By the time I finished replaying the image in my head, mom stood up. Unbeknownst to her, she had narrowly escaped being the target of my meanness.**

*Yes, I realize that yanking a trampoline out from under someone while he or she is midair could actually hurt him or her. That’s why I’ve never actually done it.

Plus? I’ll bet it would be hard to get it completely out from under a person in time.

Basically, my thyroid doesn’t produce enough of the hormone it’s supposed to. I’m almost always tired, I don’t have much energy, my hair falls out like you wouldn’t believe, I go through periods of depression and I’ve gained a bunch of weight.

Sounds SUPER fun, doesn’t it?

Well, since my diagnosis a little over a year ago, I’ve been taking 50 MCG Levothyroxine tablets every day when I wake up and I feel no different than I did when I went to the doctor in the first place. It’s been incredibly frustrating to know that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to but nothing is improving. In fact, I’ve had quite enough of that.

After talking to a couple of people that have the same thyroid problem that I do, I found out some interesting things. I learned that the synthetic thyroid hormone that I had been taking has been known to cause osteoporosis. I also learned that sometimes hypothyroidism can be caused by low iodine levels and can be treated with an iodine supplement.

None of these things were brought up when I got the results of my blood test. Actually, I wasn’t given much information at all. A nurse from my doctor’s office called and gave me the results, then informed me that they’d already called a prescription in for me. I was to start taking it right away and come in for another blood test in three weeks. The pharmacist told me that I’d start losing weight once my body adjusted to the medication and I wouldn’t have to make any changes to my diet.

Well he was a big fat liar.

I have lost some weight… I had gotten close to 180 pounds (my heaviest point, which is what caused me to go to my doctor) and I lost 5 pounds the first month I was on the medication. I took it as a good sign, and I was excited about getting down to a normal weight.

It just never happened.

I now weigh 160 pounds. Yeah, that’s less than I weighed a year ago, but at 5 ft 1 in tall it’s still too much. Remember, I gradually went from weighing between 105 and 110 (in a size 0) to 180 pounds without any drastic changes to my diet or (lack of) exercise. I also still deal with the other symptoms on a daily basis and I’m (literally) tired of it.

Today I went to a natural foods/vitamin shop and talked to the nicest woman about what I could take in place of my Levothyroxine. We went over a few different options and came up with what I hope will be a far better solution for me.

I quit taking the Levothyroxine about a week ago…and today I started taking my supplements. I haven’t discussed it with my doctor or ANY doctor.

I’m a rebel.

I’m going to try this out for a month and go in for a blood test. Then I plan to talk to my doctor about it.

Now. I don’t recommend doing this, ok? Seriously, if you think you’d like to try an alternate treatment of ANY medical condition, please talk to your doctor first. Don’t be like me.

I’ve traded my once a day, teensy-tiny synthetic hormone pill for 8 much larger pills every day (middle and right). The Thyroid Caps contain bovine thyroid.

Yup. Cow thyroid.

Moo

I really want to make sure I’m taking them every day as I’m supposed to (half in the morning, half in the afternoon) so I picked up one of those old person pill containers to keep track.

Next thing will be bifocals...sheesh

I already took my FRI am dose like a good girl.

Not surprisingly, this is a much more expensive way to go. Also, it was a pain in the ass to take that many giant pills in a row…especially because they taste AWFUL. It took half a liter of water for me to get them down and I still kind of feel like something got wedged in my throat.

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There are some things that are just better the next day. Chili immediately comes to mind, and I can remember my mom making a huge pot of chili in the winter that we’d reheat sometimes three or four days in a row.

Well, guys… The barbecue chicken I talked about on Monday is definitely one of those things.

I shredded the chicken, put it back into the sauce, and let it simmer on fairly low heat (uncovered) for quite a while so the sauce would reduce. I fished around ’til I found the garlic cloves and smashed ’em…they pretty much melted into the sauce.

While the chicken simmered, I started working on the taters and green beans…

The green beans went into a pot and I added a whole clove of garlic. Mom added butter, salt, pepper, and minced onion. We let those heat for a while, then my mom decided to smash the garlic clove up because she wanted to make sure she could taste the garlic.

I dumped the potatoes onto a sheet of foil and added butter and Parmesan cheese. Then, because I just can’t help it, I stuck a whole garlic clove in the middle. Those got wrapped up into a little bundle of happiness, then went into the oven (400 degrees) for a while. I ended up opening the foil packet and putting it back into the oven on a cookie sheet so the taters could crisp up.

Guys, I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to make this barbecue. I think I’d even go as far as to say you shouldn’t even bother eating it ’til the next day if you can manage to wait…if not, make sure to make extra so you have leftovers!

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So I found this recipe on The Pioneer Woman website last week and was itching to try it out… I mean, who doesn’t love barbecue chicken? Yesterday I strong-armed my way into my mom’s kitchen to make it, saying I wanted to make a nice Sunday dinner for them. Really? I just wanted to eat that chicken.

I’m selfish sometimes.

So, because I can’t follow a recipe exactly to save my life, I made a few changes. I didn’t have any Jack Daniels, so I used Jack Daniels barbecue sauce (Original No. 7 flavor) and (to make up for the liquid) 2 cups of water. I poured the water first into the empty barbecue sauce bottle and shook it up (put the lid on first!) then dumped that into the empty peach preserves jar and gave it a good shake. I didn’t want any of the yum to be left in the containers.

I also browned 11 boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of thighs. Bones gross me out. I used 1 1/2 onions, and instead of browning them in the pan, I just threw them raw into a casserole dish along with the rest of the sauce fixins. I think I also used 4 whole garlic cloves instead of 3. I used chives instead of green onions because I just love chives.

They seem fancier.

I put the whole thing in the oven, covered in foil, for the recommended time. An hour and a half of smelling that is almost torture. Seriously.

While that was baking, I threw some cubed taters into a skillet with butter (um, a lot), garlic powder and salt. When they were just about done I tossed in some chives.

I had also planned to oven roast some fresh green beans, but when I went to the grocery store Sunday to get them…there weren’t any. NONE. I ended up using frozen cut green beans, and I tossed them in a skillet with salt, pepper, garlic, chives and olive oil.

Let me just tell ya, this was one yummy dinner. I wish I had pictures, but I was too busy stuffing my face to take any. Sorry.

You could probably do this in a crock pot, too…Just brown the chicken in the morning and put everything in the pot all day.

We had a pretty decent amount of chicken left over, so today I’m going to shred the chicken so we can have sandwiches with green beans, corn on the cob, and maybe some cottage cheese.